Tom Kapinos is an American television writer and screenwriter best known for his creation of the Showtime series Californication and the Fox series Lucifer.

Kapinos attended Island Trees School District on Long Island, New York.^[1]

Kapinos moved from New York to California in the mid-1990s, working in Los Angeles for Creative Artists Agency as a staff story analyst. In 1999, Fox 2000 purchased his first sold screenplay, The Virgin Mary, with actress Jennifer Aniston attached to play the title role.^[2] The film was never made, but after reading The Virgin Mary the producers of Dawson's Creek offered Kapinos a job.^[3]

After beginning his career in television in 1999 as a writer and eventually executive producer on Dawson's Creek, Kapinos moved on to his own series, Californication, a dramedy on which he was executive producer and chief writer.